Another fun one at the Trop tonight with the Rays spraying the ball around, even Kelly Shoppach managed a double and an exciting foul ball in the 8-0 win.

See what abolishing batting practice can do? Maybe that was it all season. The Rays were working too hard with Derek Shelton.

Pretty amazing that Evan Longoria now sits with 20 homers and 72 RBIs with 38 games to play — a solid shot at 25+ homers and 100 RBIs in a down year in which he missed a month of the season. Another 3-0 fastball drilled into the left field seats tonight.

Hellboy was efficient and poised beyond his years, as usual. Desmon Jennings keeps creating runs.

(Side note: Kudos to Todd Kalas for the Ellis Valentine reference when talking about outfielders with cannons. The dude was a fabulous all-around player before taking a fastball to the face, which all but killed his career. Joe can still see the makeshift football helmet he batted with after that.)

So the good guys sit at seven back in the loss column behind the Red Sox. The Rays are on pace for 89 wins but are playing like a 100-win club.

Finally enjoyed reading one of your post-shots, until you ruined it like you always do by talking about yourself in third-person. WHY do that? Seriously, it makes you look egotistical and it does nothing to contribute to the subject matter of your posts.

If we can't make this historical run, I still want to see confidence builders for 2012. Rotation has to keep dominating, Jennings needs to keep hitting, Joyce needs to start hitting and Longoria has to look like an MVP the final month. The AVG may be shot but otherwise, he's on pace for a normal Longoria season and his defense has gone from "ehhh" to great again.

Nice to see Joe finally give Longo some credit. He will probably finish the season with his usual 25-30 HR and 100 RBI. His average is down but considering he has struggled with injury the majority of the year and missed significant time that is understandable. His power numbers being on par with full season totals from prior years is impressive.

I think Longo's return to respectability probably has been related to the grief he has received for all his all night partying. His agent , probably hinted that it might be wise to lay low for a while and get his numbers back up. Also, after burglars stole a bunch of weed and his AK47 from his home, toning it down will help him avoid costly fines, loss of endorsements, std's and even suspensions.

Hopefully, the Rays owners can engineer a retreat to another division, where they can woefully underpay the players and still compete. Maybe, they can move 15% of their games to England, like the Buc's, the Brit's will accept any crap that's served to them. Ever taste the food in England? Forget playing games in Mexico, we would never accept mediocrity, but Longo would love the cerveza, tequila, and Acapulco Gold.